Andre Agassi group to bankroll new charter school in Nashville

Dec. 19, 2013

Canyon-Agassi Charter School Facilities Fund, which former tennis star Andre Agassi helped found, is investing nearly $7 million in the construction of Rocketship Nashville Elementary School on Nashville's Dickerson Pike.

Andre Agassi’s philanthropy work

1994: At 24 years old, founded the Andre Agassi Charitable Foundation, which led to the construction of a shelter for abused children in his native Las Vegas, creation of the Andre Agassi Boys and Girls Club and a youth tennis program called Team Agassi

2001: Launched the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy, a charter school in Las Vegas

2011: Teamed with Canyon Capital Realty Advisors, to create the Canyon-Agassi Charter School Facilites Fund to cover $500 million for charter school buildings across the nation. Next year, the group will complete its 24th campus, which includes Rocketship Nashville Elementary School

Canyon-Agassi at a glance

Launched in 2011

Goal is to build campuses for 80 to 100 charters over five years worth $500 million in investments

Will have built 24 school campuses next year across 11 states

Funded by a consortium of investors, banks and foundations

Rocketship Education

Charter group based in San Jose, Calif., where it has eight schools; also has one in Milwaukee

Approved by Metro school board last spring to open in Nashville in August 2014

37,000-square-foot building on Dickerson Pike will cost $7 million to construct

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Former tennis great Andre Agassi’s charter school facilities organization is making Nashville one of its latest financial plays, with plans to cover the entire $7 million in construction costs for a new charter school in North Nashville.

Rocketship Nashville Elementary School, the product of San Jose, Calif.-based charter school operator Rocketship Education, has secured property at 2526 Dickerson Pike, north of Trinity Lane, where it is eying an early January groundbreaking on a 37,000-square-foot building and gymnasium that will welcome its first class of students next August.

Glenn Pierce, CEO of Los Angeles-based Canyon-Agassi Charter School Facilities Fund — which delivers capital funding for new charter facilities — confirmed his for-profit company is paying for the building’s construction after it purchased the property for $375,000 in October. Rocketship, in accordance with Tennessee’s charter law, operates as a nonprofit.

“We’ve been looking at Nashville for a while and really respect the local players there,” Pierce said, pointing to the leaders of Nashville Prep and LEAD Public Schools, two Nashville charters. “This is just the first project that really has presented itself.”

Pierce pointed to Tennessee’s growing education reform movement. “There’s a lot of great things happening in Tennessee, and we’d love to be a part of it.”

Agassi, who starred on the tennis courts during the 1990s and 2000s, launched his own charter school more than a decade ago and today serves as Canyon-Agassi’s managing partner.

Nashville’s Rocketship location on Dickerson Pike will be one of 24 Canyon-Agassi charter campuses nationwide next year. Nashville, meanwhile, is experiencing a charter school boom — 23 are set to operate here next year.

Rocketship, in its first project in Tennessee, will lease the building on the 2.9-acre site from Canyon-Agassi under the arrangement between the two parties. Like all privately-run charters in Nashville, public dollars will cover operating expenses at Rocketship.

“We just thought that was a good site and a neighborhood we wanted to serve, and it made sense to build ‘ground-up,’” said Laura Kozel, Rocketship’s vice president of facilities. “The next time we open a school there, it very well could be a renovation.”

Canyon-Agassi has an ambitious goal of developing campuses for 80 to 100 charters over the next four to five years to serve 40,000 students. The group recently constructed a Rocketship facility in Milwaukee, Wis. — the only other market outside California where Rocketship has expanded. So far, Canyon-Agassi has invested some $130 million in facilities.

Pierce said Canyon-Agassi receives its funding from a combination of investors, banks, foundations and colleges and universities. According to media reports, Citi, Intel Capital and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation have been anchor partners.

By taking care of facility needs, Canyon-Agassi covers an area that startup charter operators have long called a major hurdle. The new Rocketship school marks Nashville’s first charter to move into a new building here. In East Nashville, Metro government has paid for the renovation of the old Highland Heights School building for KIPP Nashville, another charter.

The Metro school board approved Rocketship’s Nashville charter last spring. The school has also received the green light for up to eight charters within the Achievement School District, a state governance arm that oversees schools at the bottom 5 percent of academic performance statewide, which includes Memphis and Nashville. Rocketship’s ASD plans are unclear.

Rocketship’s entry into northeast Nashville puts the new school squarely in the part of Davidson County where school members say an influx of charters has sapped student enrollments at existing public schools. The board has adopted a new plan that prevents charters applying in this area, but it applies to charters seeking approval next year, not those already authorized.

Adam Nadeau, Nashville Rocketship’s director of schools and instruction, said the school intends to target students along the Dickerson Pike corridor up Madison. “We’re looking at kids who don’t necessarily have good options and are trying to add another good option for them.”